RSVP

When I was a kid, I made up the words for RSVP - Respond Soon Very Please. Of course the grammer is slightly askew, but hey it worked for me.

Over the years we have encountered a number of people who do NOT respond, not soon, and not at all. People forget, get busy, or simply don't care and as a result don't respond to you. In recent weeks this has intensified as we've had no less than 5 encounters where people have not responded to us.

It starts when I leave a message saying "please call me." It gets a little more specific when I say "please let me know your decision." And finally I've even said, "Please call me either way so I know your status."

A majority of these encounters are with young people who have interviewed with us. They indicated a desire to work with our daughter, but then fail to follow through. Most simply do not call back at all. Others state that they will call, but don't.

So what have we instilled in this generation that makes them think that they can hide behind their cell phones and text messages? Have we forgotten to teach them common courtesy? After all, even if you don't want the job how hard is it to say to someone, "I've decided not to accept the position." It's not as if the prospective employer is your best friend, you haven't even worked for them yet.

I know that each generation tends to complain about what the next generation is lacking. Well this is my complaint - the current 18-25 somethings are lacking in the "courtesy gene." Perhaps they never had it passed on to them, or perhaps it's not a gene after all, but an environmental issue - their parents never taught them. Either way, it's annoying.

Of course with every problem, you should offer a solution or you're simply part of the problem. So my solution is this:

With each interview, I now charge a $5 interviewing fee. Yep that's right, if you want to talk with me about a job it costs you a five spot. This will be refunded if you return my calls AND return for your first shift. If you don't call me then hey I just got myself a free gallon of gas for my trouble - but that's a subject for another post.